HOKA's Huaka Origins sneaker ain't the easiest shoe to pull off. The shoe isn't terribly unusual for HOKA — guess what! It's a chunky runner! — but it's not quite as beefy as, say, HOKA's Bondi sneaker line and not quite as sleek as the Clifton series, putting it in a weird place, proportionally.
Oh, and the enormous "HOKA ONE ONE" branding doesn't help matters.
For some reason, though, the HOKA Huaka Origins' "Celery Root" colorway is actually quite palatable. Hell! It's downright handsome, giant logo and all.
Dare to compare the "Celery" colorway above to any of the other Huaka Origins sneakers currently available on HOKA's international web store for £150 apiece or at various retailers. The results are... challenging, to say the least. This is not a HOKA shoe for the faint of heart.
That's the tough thing with wearing these kinds of technical running sneakers from a stylistic perspective. Sometimes, these things' designs just kind of end up getting out of hand and the really high-vis colorways only exacerbate things.
The "Celery"-tinged Huaka Origins shoe, though, actually works pretty well. Something about the militaristic olive tones just really dresses down the shoe's more outre details in a way that just really works, allowing you to appreciate the nice details that define this silhouette, like the quicklace system with built-in straps and the streamlined upper.
Turns out celery works just as well as a palate cleanser for shoes, too!
The Huaka Origins in "Celery Root" is only the latest excellent piece of footwear to come from HOKA's camp in recent weeks.
We've witnessed exquisite mules, beautifully beefy GORE-TEX stompers, new iterations of all-timer trail runners, killer crossover kicks, and the slip-on recovery shoes that HOKA was always meant to make.
Truly, HOKA's cranking out some of the best shoes in the biz, both on a technical and aesthetic front. Not bad for a humble sportswear brand barely known in the fashion space only a half-decade ago.
